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StopBadware.org
Beware of 'Badware'
If FunCade, Jessica Simpson Screensaver, UnSpyPC or Winfixer is installed on your computer, chances are your machine is spying on you.
All four applications are the most recent additions to StopBadware.org's Badware Watch List.
StopBadware.org is a nonprofit consumer protection initiative formed by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Oxford University's Oxford Internet Institute to combat spyware.
According to the organization, "Badware" is any piece of malicious software that tracks users' moves online and then feeds that information back to shady marketing groups.
The marketers sell that data and may use it to ambush people with pop-up ads. The info can also be used to drain bank accounts or carry out identity theft.
Badware is now a $2 billion-a-year industry and 59 million Americans have malicious information collecting software on their computers, according to StopBadware.org.
"Adware and spyware threats have become a paramount threat in the past two years," said Ken Dunham, director of the Rapid Response Team at VeriSign iDefense, a computer security research company.
"And protecting against ad/spyware is not easy in today's world."
Dunham noted that many of these bad programs are embedded into Web site code or included surreptitiously with free applications like games and screensavers.
